A few weeks earlier Richardson had been awarded a grant from the Alicia Patterson Foundation to write the first comprehensive biography of Brown.

The problem was, he hadn't checked with Brown. And Richardson and Brown hadn't always been on the best of terms.

So before he told anybody else, Richardson wanted to tell Brown. He tried to reach the Assembly speaker by telephone, but Brown wouldn't return the calls.

"I just couldn't get in to see Willie Brown, and here I was about to start writing a book about him," Richardson recalled recently.

He finally staked out a Capitol hearing room that he knew Brown was in.

Brown walked out, strolled up and said, "I hear some fool has given you a grant." And then he walked away.

"I hadn't told a soul," Richardson said incredulously.

Welcome to collaboration, Willie Brown-style.

Before he was king

"Willie Brown, A Biography," now reaching the bookstores, is a must-read for Bay Area political junkies who know the 62-year-old Brown as the mayor of San Francisco or the man who served as speaker of the Assembly for more than 14 years - a state record.

They may not know of the highly intelligent young lad nicknamed "Brookie," who grew up in segregated East Texas.

Or the black activist in San Francisco politics who allegedly tried fixing an election in the local chapter of the NAACP.

Or the young assemblyman who had the worst office in the Capitol because he had the gall to vote, probably only as a whim, against the re-election of legendary Assembly boss Jesse Unruh, now deceased, as speaker.

During research for his book, which began in 1993, Richardson learned quite a bit himself of the man he had watched as a reporter for the Sacramento Bee.

"When I was covering him as a reporter, I thought this guy didn't believe in anything, that he was "Mr. Deal,' " the author said. "But I came to understand that he does stand for at least two things" - racial integration as opposed to separation, and education as the salvation of the underclass.

"If that sounds like not much to believe in, it's probably more than the average politician believes in," Richardson said.

Brown benefited from education and integration, but not until he left tiny Mineola, Texas, and arrived in California in the early 1950s.

Brown's original goal, Richardson wrote, was to attend Stanford University and become a math teacher. That he attended San Francisco State and became a lawyer is typical, Richardson said.

"I don't think Willie has ever been a planner," the author said. "He made it up as he went along."

The first half of the book provides a fascinating look at life in East Texas during Brown's childhood. Richardson poked around Mineola and interviewed scores of Brown's relatives and friends.

While Brown was at first reluctant to cooperate, he warmed up a little. "We were never bosom buddies," Richardson said. "He never asked to read the manuscript ahead of time."

Funeral car pool

One big break for Richardson came during an important event in Brown's life.

Brown's mother had died in Texas, and the services included a wake at a black church. Richardson desperately wanted to attend but hadn't been invited. He showed up anyway, only to find an empty church.

A bus carrying Brown and a host of political friends, including legislators and lobbyists, most of them white, had broken down in a tough neighborhood a few miles away. Brown ordered the group to stay on the bus, and hitchhiked to the church. There, he found Richardson.

"Richardson," Brown said. "You got a car? I need your help."

Richardson used his rental car to ferry the guests to the church. After several trips they were all there, along with members of Brown's family who had arrived.

After the last trip, Brown walked up to Richardson and said, "May I introduce you to my family."

Through interviews with them and others, Richardson was able to piece together Brown's childhood, about which Brown had been reticent.

Richardson learned that while Brown's family may have been poor, it was the leading black family in Mineola. His grandmother, who raised Brown while his mother worked as a live-in maid in Dallas, was a powerful woman.

Hints of the man he would be

Brown, although small in stature, seemed to be as outspoken as a youngster as he would become later in life.

Once, according to the book, when the police raided the family home looking for their stash of moonshine - the family ran a gambling and drinking hall - a young Brown challenged them, asking to see a search warrant.

One incident was recounted about a tense period in Mineola history when two black men had been accused of killing a white man. Gangs of white thugs were terrorizing the black neighborhoods.

Not long afterward, Brown, barely a teenager, was in the mostly white "uptown" area of Mineola with his sisters.

A white man approached him.

"Say junior, what time is it?" the man said, using a pejorative term for black males.

Brown ignored him.

The big white man asked again, repeating "junior."

"You guessed my name. Now you can guess what time it is," Brown shot back, to the horror of his sisters, who told Richardson they are still amazed he was not beaten.

Brown was known by "Brookie" throughout much of his childhood because on the night he was born, his mother, known as something of a party goer, missed a dance she had planned to attend. The music was being played by Lawson Brooks' orchestra.

Brown's mother, Minnie Collins Boyd, and father, Lewis Brown, were never married. His father spent much of his time in Mineola as a waiter, and later moved to Los Angeles.

While Brown and his father had little contact, Brown made sure his father was well taken care of in his later years at a Los Angeles rest home.

In addition to his family history, the book also tells a fascinating story of Brown's early days in politics, hooking up with San Francisco's political Burton brothers, John and the late Phil.

Election trickery alleged

Brown's first foray into election politics, according to the book, came after he joined the NAACP. The local chapter was divided and in an attempt to get his faction elected, Brown tried to fix an election, the book says.

According to Richardson, Brown went to the docks of San Francisco, offering to pay the first year's dues of any black man who would come down, join the NAACP and vote for his slate of more activist candidates.

The national chapter later nullified the election.

At a time when men and women who would later become his political colleagues were busy practicing campus politics, Brown was learning a more practical brand.

"The stakes were a hell of a lot higher than who was going to be homecoming queen," Richardson said.

In writing the book, Richardson said he didn't sit down to interview Brown until a year after he had begun the research. He eventually had four lengthy interviews with Brown.